


Iron Gates

by sister_coyote



Category: Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children
Genre: Angst, Bisexuality, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Polyamory, Threesome, Turkfic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2006-12-13
Updated: 2006-12-12
Packaged: 2017-10-05 18:23:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/44703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sister_coyote/pseuds/sister_coyote
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes there just isn't time for a lot of second-guessing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Iron Gates

**Author's Note:**

  * For [abby_sarajane](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=abby_sarajane), [celes_grant](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=celes_grant).



> Spoilers for Advent Children.

Rufus hides it well, at first, and it is only chance that Elena finds out when she does.

One minute he's standing there in his apartment, adjusting his vest and calmly briefing them on the old-money Junon family who are currently causing problems for the fledgling reborn Shinra Company, and then he hisses an indrawn breath and throws his head back, and at first she has no idea what's even going on.

One of the many things that is often surprising about Tseng is how fast he can move, especially when, seconds before, he was so immobile that he could have been a statue. But she barely has had time to register that something's wrong when Tseng is already at Rufus' side, which is why Rufus doesn't hit the floor. Tseng hauls Rufus over and pins him unceremoniously flat to the couch. She realizes then that Rufus is gasping in the throes of some kind of fit, the muscles in his neck and shoulders tight and his chest spasming. Tseng's forearm across the top of his shoulders holds him down.

Rufus twitching in the grip of whatever is wrong with him is the most bizarre thing she's ever seen. Rufus is not, does not, cannot be out of control—and yet for several eternal seconds he is beyond reason or sense. Then his body goes slack, slowly, descending into deep shudders. Tseng lets go of him. Tseng's face is blank, but Elena knows that look: it's not indifference, it's pain, carefully held back but no less real.

"It's . . . "

" . . . Geostigma," she finishes. She recognizes the symptoms of the disease even before the black stain seeps through Rufus' layers of clothing, staining his pristine white vest. She has never seen it dirty. "I didn't know."

"I guessed," Tseng said, "but he wouldn't admit to it."

Her tongue feels thick in her mouth. "He—" she said. "It—" She can't think of a good way to say it. Geostigma has no cure; it kills adults within sixteen months, sometimes faster. It hits hardest the young and the healthy; the fits and wracking pain are worst for them, as though the disease turns their own strength against them.

"Yes," Tseng says, in that curious flat tone that could easily be taken for emotionlessness.

She stands there for a moment. It's a weird little tableau: Rufus flat on his back, unconscious, the shudders subsiding; Tseng sitting next to him on the edge of the couch; herself a scarce few feet away, standing, staring. Rufus will sleep for a time, and then be extremely weak, and will regain strength slowly . . . until another attack comes and steals it from him again. She thinks back to what little she knows of the epidemic.

"We should change his bandages," she says, "if he has them on, or bandage him if he doesn't." Tseng looks at her with mild surprise. She sighs. "I know it's not contagious, and he shouldn't have to wake up in that." The black fluid has subsided, but it's left a splotch on his vest, and if it's soaked that far through his layers . . . .

Tseng looks at her with a new measure of respect. "Quite," he says.

* * *

In the days and weeks that pass, they are all informed—officially—all four of them. Because it's rapidly becoming clear that this is something Rufus can't handle on his own. The attacks are rare (so far; that will change as the disease progresses, which isn't something she likes to dwell on), but it's certainly something they need to know to guard him adequately.

Even if they have no way to guard him against the thing that's most likely to kill him.

There are a lot of things Elena's pretty sure Rufus would say if he could bring himself to do so. Like, "I feel awful," or "I'm tired," or most of all, "I don't want to die." But he can't. He can't for a reason she understands, even if she doesn't know how to verbalize it, because it's more or less the same reason she is particularly brutal with the marks who treat her like a _girl_, and the reason she can't bring herself to order a mango margarita in front of Reno or, gods forbid, let Tseng know how she feels about him, or even let _herself_ think about it.

She thinks Tseng doesn't understand, because Tseng's reserve is either natural to him and requires no effort, or has been something he's affected for so long it might as well be natural. If he knows what it's like to feel vulnerable, it's news to her.

And that's why, even though Rufus is really painfully smug and self-satisfied sometimes, what she feels when she sees him struggling to bandage the stigmata on his chest is just _empathy_. It'd be awkward even for someone with all their strength, because it's necessary to hold the loose end of the bandage still while getting the roll around one's torso, and that's not an easy movement. It's even more awkward for Rufus, who seems most comfortable with three or four or five layers of clothing between him and anyone else (and she wonders about that, sometimes, what it's armor against).

"Let me," she says without thinking, which she thinks was a mistake the instant he looks up. Until she spoke, he could just pretend she wasn't there until he was done and had his shirts back on, but now she has made him acknowledge that she is there, that she sees that he is having trouble.

"I can manage," he says shortly.

She ought to shut up, but—but keeping her mouth shut was never her strongest point. "It's not worth wearing yourself out over," she says. "It's okay." She thinks that last was probably _really_ over the line, because who is she to reassure him, but he looks at her and then nods, curtly, and hands her the end of the roll of bandages, so she can begin winding them around his chest.

That's when she thinks maybe this was a mistake for an entirely different reason.

The best way to deal with their proximity and the fact that he's shirtless (and his skin, where it's not marked by the Stigma, is smooth and surprisingly warm to the touch; he's so pale under his clothes that his skin looks like it ought to be icy, but it isn't) is to steadfastly Not Think About It. This is her boss. This is her _boss_. This is Rufus Shinra, who neither bleeds nor cries (although he does apparently ooze black stuff, and that's an awful thing to be thinking), and who responds to threats with amusement and a shotgun (which actually is pretty hot, but that's _entirely beside the point_), and she is not thinking about the oblique angle of his cheekbone or the way he's surprisingly muscular for a rich boy, and she's definitely not noticing stupid things like the fact that his eyelashes are as fair as his hair or his warm clean-skin scent.

He turns his head a little to look at her and his eyes are blue, vividly blue, and that catches her so utterly off-guard that all she can do is go with instinct—which is what she was trained to do, after all—and instinct tells her to close the gap and kiss him. She isn't really aware that that's what she's doing until her mouth is on his, and she feels as much as hears his sharp intake of breath, and his lips are soft, and they part and his tongue is . . . and she's afraid to stop kissing him now, because she's a little bit afraid he's going to pull his shotgun on her for this foolish, foolish action.

He pulls back a little, and for a moment they are closer than an inch apart but not touching, so she can feel his breath on her mouth. Then he pulls back a little more and she can see his eyes. She swallows, pulling together her thoughts, and manages—even with a trace of irony!—to say, "You're not going to shoot me, are you?"

Something flickers in his eyes. His mouth curves. "I don't know. Should I?"

"Well, _I_'d just as soon you didn't."

He blinks at her, and then, to her astonishment, he laughs. He laughs, and runs a hand up into his hair, and for a moment he almost looks his age, which is nearly her age, which is a particularly bizarre thought, and then—even more bizarre—he's kissing her. Not hard, but . . . vigorously. A little rough.

_What the fuck,_ is the contribution from the corner of her brain that isn't trying to convince the rest of her that it'd only be polite to take her own shirt off, since he's shirtless, after all. Her hand comes to rest on his shoulder, feeling warm skin, warm human skin and that reminds her that he may be Rufus, who never shows weakness, who insists on always being right, but he's also a young man who's probably dying. And who may even be a little lonely, because she knows perfectly well how many personal visitors he has—or doesn't have.

So she kisses him, keeps kissing him, tasting his mouth and his tongue licking along the edges of her teeth and then his own teeth nipping her lower lip. She kisses with her eyes open, so she can see his own eyes heavy-lidded, his hair falling in his face, like he's really concentrating on this.

Then she hears the door open and freezes, suddenly and perfectly well aware of who that is. In the other room. Undoubtedly coming into this room. And she thinks _oh shit_, partly because getting caught with your tongue down your boss's throat is rarely a good idea, and partly because she's never really been able to shake her . . . fascination (yes, fascination, that's a nice safe word) with Tseng. She pulls away with a little gasp, tries to steady her breathing, and starts to get up. Rufus' hand tightens slightly on the back of her neck, and he says, very softly, "Don't run away."

Which is goddamn fighting _dirty_, and which she ought therefore to have predicted from him, because now she can't move away. It's a matter of pride. She doesn't back down, she doesn't duck challenges, and she _doesn't run away_.

So they're like that when Tseng comes in, not actually kissing but, well, he'd have to be pretty stupid not to see what's going on with her hand on Rufus' bare shoulder and his hand settled on the back of her neck, under her hair, and them just inches apart. She can see him out of the corner of her eye, and is a little bit afraid to look at him because then she'll have to say something, and he's so still and she doesn't know what on earth she would _say_. Rufus turns his head because he's perfectly comfortable meeting Tseng's gaze, and damn it, damn it—and Tseng says, softly, "I am interrupting. I apologize."

And Elena feels Rufus' pulse jump under her hand, and she suddenly thinks that maybe, maybe he's not as calm as he appears, maybe he's afraid of something and unwilling to admit it, too; and though he keeps his face turned toward Tseng, his eyes slide back toward her, and she can see a note of question in them. As impulsive as before—because, damn it, she's not good at these layers of quiet and subtlety as they are; she's more like Reno that way than she likes to admit—the words come out of her mouth in a tangle: "You're not. Don't. I mean —"

"Stay," Rufus breathes.

Tseng stays still a moment longer, and Elena finally brings herself to look at him. Something glints in his dark eyes (his eyes were always a weakness of hers—his eyes, and his hair, and, oh, hell, all of him) and then he is by the side of the bed, standing over both of them, looking at them with an unreadable expression. "How," he asks softly, "exactly is this supposed to work?"

"I don't know yet," Rufus says, and then, with utter confidence, "but I'll figure it out."

"Are you sure?" Tseng asks.

Elena speaks without thinking, breathless, still touching Rufus and looking at Tseng, "Yes." Then feels her face heat up, feels shameless, but lifts her chin and doesn't take the words back.

"I don't think there's time for me to dance around what I want," Rufus says very quietly. Elena catches her breath. He goes on, blithely, "So unless _you_ don't want . . . "

"No," Tseng says. "Not that at all." He hesitates a moment more, and then closes his hand gently around Elena's wrist. "I think we're overdressed," he says, mild as sunlight. She lets him pull her to her feet—Rufus's hand slides from under her hair and trails over her shoulder in a way that makes her liquefy a little, just that simple touch through her clothing. Tseng's arm slides around her waist and he bends his head but doesn't kiss her, although he's so close she can't assume he means to do anything else, but waits like he has all the time in the goddamn world. Once again she's the one to close the gap—patience is apparently not her virtue—but he's the one to deepen the kiss, coaxing her tongue into his mouth. She makes a tiny helpless noise. Her hands skim up his chest, tentative at first but encouraged by his softly indrawn breath. She can't get his jacket off, not with his arm around her, but she can start to work on his buttons, and after a moment he begins on hers, and then abruptly Rufus is kneeling up on the bed and his bare arms wrap around Tseng's waist and drag him backwards. Tseng grunts indignantly and sits down hard on the edge of the bed, pulling Elena with him. Rufus seems to think that's just _fine_.

It gets confusing, with three sets of hands working on two shirts; she's intensely aware when Tseng's shirt hangs open, because then she can slide her hands up his bare chest, but she's not sure exactly how her own shirt got undone, just that Rufus is tugging determinedly on the sleeve for a few seconds before Tseng figures out the problem and pops the last button at her wrist. She feels one of them unhook the catch on her bra, and her breath hitches. Tseng murmurs, "You're really sure?"

And she says, "Yes," feeling a little giddy, a little wild, this is definitely something _nice girls_ don't do, but hell, nice girls also don't blow up buildings or interrogate witnesses or pack at least one gun and one knife just to go to the corner store. She's trying to figure out Rufus' pants, because they're as unnecessarily complex as any other part of his clothing, and he actually laughs and his slim warm hands cover hers and show her how, and it doesn't take long before they're all naked (except for Rufus' bandages, but that doesn't bear thinking right this moment).

She kisses Tseng again, slowly—maybe _too_ slowly, because after a moment Rufus catches a handful of her hair and pulls her back with it—not hard enough to hurt, but hard enough to make her think about protesting. Rufus leans in, draped halfway across her body, and kisses Tseng himself. She forgets all about protesting. That's amazingly, skin-scorching hot; Tseng's eyes are closed, his lashes dark against his high cheekbones, but Rufus' aren't: they are narrowed to sharp blue slits but still watching, always watching. "Oh god," she says despite herself, and Rufus starts to chuckle into Tseng's mouth. So she digs her fingers into his hair to pull him back and kiss him, at an awkward angle, her teeth scraping over his lower lip.

Tseng's thigh is pressed against her knee, and Rufus' hip digs against her stomach, and oh god this is really going to happen, is really _happening_. Tseng drags Rufus into another kiss, and it's enough at first to watch, and her heart pounds and it's like every detail is burning itself into her skin: Rufus' hands trailing down Tseng's sides and then up his back, Tseng's hand resting at the back of Rufus' neck, and the way his mouth moves like he's sucking Rufus' tongue, oh _fuck_.

And it goes on like that for a while, just hands and mouths, touching, and she gets a taste of Rufus' skin and then Tseng's hair sweeping over her breasts, which makes her moan out loud in a way that would be totally embarrassing if it didn't make Tseng's eyes ignite, and watching them touch each other—this could be _plenty_.

But Rufus says, "I want to . . . . "

And Tseng seems to understand, because he says, "Fuck me," very softly, and Elena's pressed up against him at that moment and feels the words as he speaks them, and shudders hard. Tseng slides his hand down her stomach, curling low, stroking absently against her slick lips.

"I can—can fuck you, and you and Elena—" Rufus says.

"Oh god," Elena says without even thinking about it, and Tseng's finger curls in at that exact second to stroke her clit, and all she can think is that that's the best idea she's heard in—in—_ever_. She's wanted Tseng so badly for so long . . . and the idea of being, of being, of him inside her while Rufus fucks him is almost too much.

"Yes?" Rufus says. "That's yes?" Tseng purrs against her ear, and she nods.

"So long as I don't wind up on the bottom _all_ the time," she says, too breathless to really be a complaint.

"I don't think you have to worry about that," Rufus says, and it makes her feel better that he's pretty breathless, too. She can see him considering the possible variety of scenarios parading past his mind's eye, and the way he licks his lips—she bets unconsciously—makes her suppress a grin.

Tseng's voice is like—is like good port, strong and dark and sweet, when he says, "I'll make it worth your while." She actually moans and squirms at that, and he laughs, but not like he's laughing _at_ her, and kisses along her throat.

Rufus's expression is heavy-lidded, self-satisfied. "I told you I'd work it out." But he's too excited to do a perfect imitation of unaffectedness: his lips parted, his cheeks flushed, his breathing fast.

"You're very clever," Tseng says, his voice velvety with amusement. He leans over to kiss Rufus, and then her, settling in over her and touching her unhurriedly.

Rufus swallows hard. She can see that his pupils are expanded, just a brilliant rim of blue around the black. "You'd better start first," he says, a little bit shakily. "I don't know that I'll be able to last very long." It surprises her that he's willing to admit that, and she thinks suddenly of the fact that he's sick, and when she looks at him his eyes are so bright it takes her breath away.

After all this she expects Tseng to just—to just go for it; she can feel his cock hard against her hip, and she's certainly not acting like she wants him to take it slow, but he does anyway—well, not very slow, and it's just as well because she's not sure she has the patience to handle that gracefully, but slower than she'd expected. He kisses her, bites the juncture of her shoulder—not enough to leave a mark, but plenty hard enough to really _feel_—slips his fingers into her to stroke and stretch her, until she's breathless and tugging on his hair in an attempt to get him to get _on_ with it. Somewhere behind him, Rufus says, "I'm _waiting_ here," and he sounds horny and impatient and a little petulant and, and—and twentysomething, which is what he _is_, rather than his usual thirty-going-on-smarter-than-you. Elena decides she likes that. Really likes that.

But she's in agreement with him, so she reaches down to wrap her hand around Tseng's cock—he hisses an indrawn breath—and guides it into her. Ah. _Yes._

And she's glad, though she'd never actually admit it, that he is going slow at first—because it's been quite a while since she's done this, and he's not small by any means, and she's feeling the stretch; not really uncomfortable, but it's going to take a moment to adjust. His hips rock a little, working into her, and that's good, that's very good—and before he can really work up a rhythm, Rufus says, "Hold still a minute," in a voice that's vibrating with suppressed excitement, and she knows the minute Rufus gets a finger up his ass, because Tseng tenses a little and closes his eyes like he's concentrating, and then—and this feels incredible, his body against hers—relaxes, deliberately, muscle by muscle.

It's so fucking hot she feels like there's a very real chance that she will hyperventilate if she doesn't pay really close attention to her breathing. She can't help it, she squirms, and Tseng catches his breath hard and thrusts a little and Rufus sounds fucking _awed_ when he says, "Oh god," and then she can see him, past Tseng's shoulder, positioning himself.

And. Oh.

It doesn't quite work perfectly, because this certainly isn't a position she has any familiarity with and she suspects the same is true of them, but it _works,_ oh, and how. The smallest things can provoke a chain reaction, so that sucking on Tseng's earlobe can wind up making Rufus growl, and when Rufus starts to thrust harder it rocks Tseng deep into her, and she bends her knees—she can't get them around his waist, the position's all wrong, so she just picks them up, and then suddenly Tseng can thrust deeper, and that makes him speed up, which makes her keen and Rufus throw his head back so his hair falls in his eyes, and.

And Rufus comes first, making helpless little noises and shuddering, his hands covering hers on Tseng's shoulders, both of them hanging on—even with Tseng between them, his own moan a long hum that vibrates through her and through Rufus, oh god, oh god, Rufus is really just inches away, and she can see his mouth open, his eyes wide, the pupils dilated like a hunting cat, and the sounds he's making are in Tseng's ear and almost in hers, and that's almost enough right there. She tightens her grip on Tseng's shoulders and moves fast and hard, as Rufus collapses and slides off, the mattress dipping to her right, and it's not much longer for her. She digs her hands into Tseng's hair and his eyes meet hers as she comes, fierce and dark, falcon eyes, and she knows she's making a lot of noise but she has no clear idea what she's saying. It doesn't take Tseng long after that, though she breathes encouragement in his ear until he tenses over her and comes.

They're all breathing hard, tangled up in a way that's not actually totally comfortable but none of them are moving just yet. Tseng shifts so that she's not supporting all of his weight, and strokes her hip absently, without words. Rufus has a look on his face that's going to turn smug in a little bit, she just _knows_ it, but right now it's just dazed and slightly surprised pleasure.

"Um," she says, because keeping her mouth shut has never been her strongest point, "that was—"

"Yes," Tseng says, sounding very, very satisfied, like the cat that just got the cream _and_ the canary.

"I honestly didn't expect it to work quite that smoothly," Rufus says absently, after a little more time has passed. He's stroking little circles over the edge of Tseng's shoulder and the swell of her breast.

"Well," she says, "I mean, we're _supposed_ to good at improvising—"

"And quick thinking," Tseng says, with a low rumble that sounds like amusement.

"And making the most of the situation presented," she finishes thoughtfully.

"This is hardly in your job description," Rufus says.

"That's true," she says. "It's sort of a special added bonus."

. . . And she can't ignore the bandages around his chest forever, or their implications, but it's okay. It's _okay_. She and Tseng, they're Turks, and making problems go away is their _job_. They'll figure something out.

They always do.


End file.
